• Keep keiki safe • Be safe on the road • Wasting money and resources • Time to debate nuclear Keep keiki safe Good letter from Cliff and Cecelia Waeschle suggesting free car seats for children under 40 pounds be
• Keep keiki safe • Be safe on the road • Wasting money and
resources • Time to debate nuclear
Keep keiki safe
Good letter from Cliff and Cecelia Waeschle suggesting free car seats for children under 40 pounds be offered to needy parents via the Salvation Army (“Sympathies to the family,” Feb. 23).
In my part-time town of Park City, Utah, a child was badly injured when not in a car seat and the community started a program via a nonprofit where any family — we have a lot of low-income workers — could get free car seats for their children.
It has been hugely successful with distribution through the churches and a resale store called The Christian Center. The idea is spot on.
The community gave it huge support, donating money and seats, and making sure that each family is supplied. Word of mouth and a lot of people with big hearts made it successful.
I hope the churches or some other non-profit will take up the work on Kaua‘i to keep all our keikis safe.
Wendy Winegar, Kilauea
Be safe on the road
Vehicles’ signal lights should be installed optionally when purchasing a vehicle.
Because drivers here on Kaua‘i don’t use their signal lights before making a turn (left or right), make hand signals mandatory. Maybe then drivers will use the their signal lights.
Then there are drivers who just can’t have anyone in front of them. While cruising at 55 mph down Kekaha/Mana stretch, a driver in a blue Mazda pick-up truck sped by me at a very high speed on Kaumuali‘i Highway — only to make a left turn at the corn company approximately a quarter mile after passing me. Go figure!
Before staring up your vehicle, take some time to say to yourself, “let me be safe, be alert and be courteous to other drivers and pedestrians while on the road.”
Howard Tolbe, ‘Ele‘ele
Wasting money and resources
In a recent Garden Island there is an article entitled, “Kaua‘i officials to rally against pot legislation.” In the article, it quotes KPD Assistant Chief Roy Asher as saying, “California is dealing with a sharp increase in murders, assaults, and robberies associated with its marijuana dispensaries and weakened drug laws.”
In the same article, James Anthony, a former community prosecutor for the city of Oakland is quoted as saying, “California is experiencing a 30-year low in violent crimes …”
I went to the Internet to check the facts. Based on the California Law Enforcement Agency Uniform Crime Reports available at www.disastercenter.com/crime/cacrime.htm, James Anthony has the facts on his side in every category of crime. Violent crimes per 100,000 people decreased from a high of 1,119 in 1992 to 472 in 2009. The rate has decreased every year without an exception.
I suggest that the council balance any rhetoric they hear from the local law enforcement community with information available on the Web at sites like drugpolicy.org.
Drug use should be treated as a health problem not a criminal problem. The war on drugs has been an extremely expensive failure. Some of the most conservative politicians and statesman have come out in favor of the decriminalization of marijuana (see sample list below). They realize that our current approach to drug addiction through the War on Drugs is truly a classic example of insanity, if you assume a definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
In 1972, a bipartisan commission handpicked by Richard Nixon unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession of marijuana for personal use. Nixon chose to ignore that recommendation, and we have been wasting money and police resources ever since.
Frank Carlucci, Former Defense Secretary
Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)
Ruth Dreifuss, Former President of the Swiss Confederation
George P. Shultz, Former Secretary of State
Paul Volker, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Milton Friedman, Economist
Patrick V. Murphy, Former Police Commissioner and former police chief of NYC, Detroit, and Washington D.C.
Jonathan McRoberts, Kilauea
Time to debate nuclear
In the Feb. 19 article, “KIUC board candidates share views at forum,” I would like to correct a misunderstanding.
The cost of nuclear energy from modern, compact reactors would be approximately $200 per house per year not per month. Unfortunately the state Legislature has banned civilian nuclear energy in Hawai‘i. It is time to rethink this positing and debate this issue.
We also have an electric vehicle, a Segway. Also, I recommended when the state and county design major highway improvements, they design it so power lines are put underground. They are not currently doing so.
JoAnne Georgi, ‘Ele‘ele
